Heavy Equipment Tow Team Helps Unload Heavy Delivery at the Airport
O’Hare Towing Service & Semi Truck Heavy Duty Wrecker Service & Semi Truck Heavy Duty Wrecker’s heavy equipment tow team helped unload a special delivery at O’Hare International Airport last week. The airport had purchased a pushback tractor which was being delivered to a nearby hangar.
Now what in the world is a pushback tractor? Pushback tractors are low-profile vehicles used to push airplanes back out of nose-in parking spots. Believe it or not, as sophisticated as planes are, most are not engineered to be able to reverse on their own!
Always reliable, the heavy equipment tow team showed up one hour early to the job! This gave them ample time to assess the situation and come up with a safe lifting plan. The pushback tractor was 130,000 lb and was currently sitting on a removable gooseneck trailer. The airport crew could not drive the pushback off the trailer as it did not have enough clearance.
O’Hare always shows up with the right equipment for the job! Using two rotators, one on each side of the tractor, they began the rigging process. Each rotator boom had two 2-point lines to the tractor. Each of those lines were rated at 20,000 lb. Some quick math then shows us that they were rigged to lift up to 160,000 lb!
With the rigging complete and the correct lift angles calculated, the heavy equipment tow team were able to lift the pushback and deposit it on the ground smoothly. Great work out there team! You showed how important pre-planning and preparation is when it comes to heavy lifting!
Details of Heavy Equipment Tow Team Helps Unload Heavy Delivery at the Airport
A heavy equipment tow team was dispatched to a hangar outside of O’Hare International Airport. The heavy equipment tow team was scheduled to arrive at the hangar at 8:00 AM. The team chose to arrive earlier in order to give them ample time to plan the lift.
The airport tasked the heavy equipment towing team to lift a 130,000 lb pushback tractor that they had recently purchased. The assistance of the heavy tow team was needed as the pushback was on a RGN trailer and did not have enough clearance to be safely driven off.
Placing one rotator on each side of the pushback tractor, the heavy equipment tow team began the rigging process. Each boom was fitted with two 2-point lines to the load. Each of the cables was rated for 20,000 lb. In total each of the heavy equipment towing team’s rotators was rigged to lift 80,000 lb. This gave the heavy equipment towing team more than enough to lift the 130,000 lb pushback tractor.
Having methodically calculated the lift angles, the rotator operators began lifting the pushback tractor. In unison, the heavy equipment towing team moved the booms away from the RGN trailer. The pushback trailer was safely deposited on the ground in front of the airplane hangar.